It Was A 'Game'
by Swyfte
Summary: When three kits are enticed into an adventurous game in the middle of their night by their nervous mother, things begin to go lethally wrong.


_Momma. I'm cold._

She could only think the words, couldn't say them- they had frozen in her throat. Beside her, her siblings trudged through the snow, heads down, tails tracing grooves between the pawprints they left behind them.

_Momma, I'm-_

Momma walked in front of them, occasionally glancing back, enticing them on, talking about her stupid _game_. She didn't want to play anymore- she wanted to be home, safe, in her nest. Warm. She'd forgotten how it felt to be anything but paw-freezingly, nose-numbing, bitingly cold.

A fat drop of snow landed on her soft grey head; she didn't feel it, or the seeping wetness as it melted.

She was too-

_cold._

"Momma," Mosskit whimpered, stumbling through a drift that reached as high as her chin.

"Can we go back now Momma?" she asked, shivering pitifully. Momma glanced back, her eyes wide, filled with a blank enthusiasm.

"Not just yet Mosskit," Momma said soothingly. "We can't let ShadowClan catch us, remember?" Again, with her stupid _game_.

"I'll protect you," Stonekit boasted, but he too looked miserable. Mistykit didn't say a word; she trudged on resolutely, ever-enduring, behind their mother.

A ragged, sharp cry tore through the night and the young kit flinched.

"Don't worry," Momma whispered. "It's just an owl, an owl. We won't let it catch us, will we?"

Stonekit didn't bother to answer this time. Mistykit didn't utter a word, and Mosskit resolutely shut her mouth. She had a torrent of complaints she wanted to unleash, but if her siblings were so strong and uncaring, she should be too.

Momma stopped for a moment and Mosskit collapsed onto the snow with a whimper. Her paws- on the brink of numbness and pain- ached with a passion, her nose had stopped being a nose and become an icicle, and her grey fur was dusted with snow. For a moment, to distract her from the cold, she fancied they were stars. She fancied that she was a big, strong StarClan warrior and nothing could touch her. She fancied she wasn't cold.

Then she focused on what Momma was doing. She looked like she was digging a small hole, as if she were a burrowing mouse. Did mice burrow? Mosskit was sure; she'd never been good with remembering small trivia. Like most kits, all she'd wanted to do was play.

"Here, kits, you waited in here while I carry on with Mistykit," Bluefur instructed, ushering Stonekit and Mosskit into the small hole she'd dug. Then she stopped to pick up Mistykit's scruff and began to carry her away.

"Wait," Mosskit whimpered, blinking her owlish eyes at her brother. "Momma's coming back, right? Did she say she'd be back?"

Stonekit looked at her, whiskers twitching, and pressed his muzzle to hers. "Of course she'll come back," he replied. "She's our Momma."

After a while Momma came back and picked up Stonekit. She looked down at her remaining kit, twitched one ear reassureingly before carrying the little tom in the same direction she'd taken Mistykit.

And Mosskit was left alone.

Yet by that point, she was so cold and tired she hardly cared. She was a small creature made of ice, and any small movement was likely to shatter her into a thousand brittle cold splinters. But at some point, Momma came back for her. She felt gentle teeth close around her scruff and in one swift movement, she was lifted off the ground entirely, too tired to protest, too cold to care.

After a moment, a minute, an eternity of walking, Bluefur set her down in another hole beside Mistykit. Together the two kits huddled as Stonekit trotted away beside their mother. Together they shivered; together they waited to be taken away. To where they weren't sure, but it was clear the game was nearing its welcome end.

_They hoped._

The pattern continued; Momma came back, Momma fetched a kit, Momma stowed it in a new hole, Momma came back. It all happened in a cold daze, until suddenly, Momma stopped her routine. She gathered all of her kits and lay down with them in the snow. Mosskit snuggled into her warm fur, but even that wasn't enough to lift the haze from her vision.

_Momma_,

Momma was talking, comforting, reassuring, telling them about some tom- RiverClan, mind- named Oakheart. He was coming to break them, no, take them, away. Take them away from Momma?

Nothing made sense, but that was alright. She was too tired really, and a little bit warm. Mosskit's eyes fluttered closed.

The young kit didn't realize she was dead until she opened her eyes and found herself standing outside of her own body. For a moment she looked down at herself, small, curled against the snow, eyes clenched shut. Then she looked up at her mother; she'd stopped her prattling, and stared down at Mosskit with wide, frantic eyes.

"Momma," Mosskit tried to say. "I'm right here!"

But the blue-grey she-cat didn't hear.

"Mosskit," she whispered, moving her tail to shield her remaining kits from the site. "Mosskit, wake up!"

Mosskit backed up a step and stared into her mother's unseeing eyes.

_Am I a StarClan cat now? What about being an apprentice? What about being a brave warrior? They were going to call me Mossheart, I know they were!_

"Mosskit," a gentle voice whispered.

The she-kit spun around; a tall white she-cat with long, sleek fur stood behind her. Her wide blue eyes were sad; with a jolt, Mosskit realized they were they exact same hue as her Momma's.

"You can see me?" she asked, daring to hope, daring to hope that she wasn't staring at her unmoving body.

"Yes, Mosskit, I can. That's why you have to come with me."

"Why? Can't I stay with Momma?" Mosskit asked; once again she was confused. Nothing made sense.

"You just...have to. Where we're going, you can wait for your mother. You'll see her again- and she'll see you."

Because of her simple reassurances and her bright blue eyes, Mosskit nodded and began to follow the white she-cat.

Together they wove a path into the stars, where Mosskit realized she was no longer cold.

* * *

**This was a challenge for BunnyClan and shows complete disregard to what actually happened in BP and the one-shot by the Erins. Oh well. :3 I hope you enjoyed it (despite it being sorta depressing and all.)**


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